New technologies like fracking––along with government subsidies––have ushered in an energy boom reliant on extreme extraction methods to produce oil and natural gas. Now the Uinta Basin is ground zero for what threatens to become the next phase in extreme energy extraction: strip mining for tar sands and oil shale.

Through public land leases, infrastructure subsidies, and some very expensive tax breaks, taxpayer money is supporting what could become one of the dirtiest, most destructive chapters in American energy history.

Many people concerned about climate change may be focussed on the ongoing UN climate negotiations in Lima, but back home in the US it is business as usual for the oil and gas industry: they are secretly lobbying to delay action on climate and undermine America’s environmental protection laws.

Where we played our game -- a game of communities rising up, of organizing, of using facts to guide us, of running straight at our progressive values and being unashamed of them -- we won. And those wins were beautiful.

During today's Environment and Public Works Senate Hearing on rural climate impacts, Senator Inhofe made a statement that -- if it weren't so telling of the fundamental problems in Washington, D.C -- would by funny.

Last week the Chief Executive of Occidental Petroleum, a mega-fracker, told analysts and investors if “towns don’t want us there, we won’t be there.” What he failed to mention is that they’ve got the Governor in their pockets doing the dirty work for them.